The Goose
by EmmBee
Summary: She has been recorded laughing only once in her entire life. He has laughed from his very first moment of life. With the help of a hungry wizard and a sticky goose, they can have a happily-ever-after. "The Golden Goose" twoshot.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: This story was written just for fun, for a change of pace after so much time spent on serious work. Please be kind, and don't expect too much from it. Maybe you'll laugh while reading it as much as I laughed while writing it!**

--

The suitors marched to the showroom. There were probably seventy-five of them. Princess Ariana sighed. Beside her, her three serving maids sighed, too, but for a different reason. Ariana could hear them whispering to each other. "Ooh, look at the one in the blue suit. Definitely a prince!" they said. Or, "Good fortune! That one looks foreign!" Or, "That one is a powerful duke, clearly."

The first suitor stepped up to Ariana's dais. "Princess Ariana," he said in a deep, booming voice that seemed odd in so feminine a showroom, "I bring you a wheel of cheese." He presented a large—it probably weighed five pounds!—cheese wheel. Ariana nodded to the nearest lady-in-waiting, who accepted the wheel even more delicately than Ariana would have.

"Come, now, daughter," Queen Ariel demanded, giggling, "a five pound wheel of cheese?"

Ariana just shrugged. "That's not funny."

If she were to be honest—and, often, she wasn't—Ariana would say that she was so tired of people trying to make her laugh that she wouldn't laugh to save her life. But, because she was of a serious sort (Princess Ariana had been recorded laughing exactly once, when she was seven months old), King Sebastian and Queen Ariel thought it a good test of character in the young man that their daughter was to marry if he could make the very beautiful, but very serious, princess laugh.

Thus far, all that the suitors had made Ariana do was sigh.

--

In the town that surrounded the castle, there lived a swordsmith. Tom the swordsmith, because of his advantageous location, worked for all sorts of high-born people like knights and dukes and warriors. He had three sons. Dick and Harry, the elder two, were smart young men of twenty-three and twenty, respectively. Then, at fifteen, there was the youngest, Isaac, so named because his mother was losing her mind just before he was born. Tom knew that his youngest son would be born stupid, and he felt it wise to warn all who would hear his son's name. And, just as Tom suspected, the first sound Isaac ever made was an infant's giggle. "He's as loony as his mother," Tom had muttered sadly, shaking his head.

Isaac grew up thinking that his name was a synonym for "simple," and he often tried to suppress his urges to laugh, knowing that laughter so often got him sad, withered looks from his family. But, try as he might to prove the contrary, Isaac was a laugher. Therefore, he was branded as stupid, dim-witted, and loony, because—as all the villagers knew—laughter is a sign of a simple mind.

One day, Tom was summoned to the castle to demonstrate his superior swordsmithing. Because Dick and Harry were otherwise occupied with the things an intelligent mind is often occupied with—numbers and foreign languages and such—and swordsmithing cannot be done by oneself, Tom had no choice but to bring Isaac with him. "Don't blow this for me, son," Tom warned on the way up.

Isaac forced away his customary smile and frowned, as dour-faced as any intelligent villager. But, because he had never been to, Isaac was pleased to be going. And when the drawbridge guard smiled—so kindly, so genially—Isaac couldn't help it; he smiled back and, to Tom's horror, even laughed a little.

"Son," Tom whispered harshly, "this is the castle, and this could be _the most_important smithing opportunity I will ever have. Stop that _infernal_ laughter!"

"I'm sorry, Father," Isaac apologized quietly. "But he was being so nice."

Tom sniffed. "Well, you can't help that you're simple-minded, now can you?"

Isaac shook his head.

"Just don't do it again."

Isaac nodded.

The butler at the door bowed when he answered Tom's knocking. "Lord and Lady Mason are expecting you, sir." The butler smiled at Isaac. "And who are you?"

"My son. He's extremely simple. Doesn't speak and barely understands," Tom explained, leading Isaac into the palace.

Isaac was long used to such descriptions, so it had long since ceased bothering him.

"This way," the butler instructed, jumping in front of Tom to lead them to the throne room, where the smithing demonstration would take place.

--

Princess Ariana was tired of the day's suitors, so, while the entire room was shaking with laughter, she slipped out from underneath her not-so-watchful ladies-in-waiting and began wandering down the mostly deserted halls.

--

Isaac couldn't keep his mind on the swords his father was demonstrating. What a boring job this is, he kept thinking as he watched Tom banging a hammer on one of the glowing, red-hot swords. _Clank! Clank! Clank!_ It was giving Isaac a headache. _Clankiddy, clank, clank!_ Boring. Boring. Boring. _Clank, cla—CRASH!_

Right in the middle of Tom's clank, the searing redness of the smithed sword reached Isaac's left hand, and Isaac jerked away from it. The sword clattered to the ground.

Tom turned to his son in a fury. "Isaac," he seethed through his teeth, "get outta here!"

Isaac was only too happy to obey; he hurried off into the hallway.

He could hear it before he understood: a dull roar, sometimes higher, sometimes lower, but it shook the entire castle anyway. "What's that noise?" he asked of the pretty maiden he saw up ahead of him—the only other person in the hall.

Ariana paused when the boy in the hall said something to her. "Oh," she replied, cocking her head to hear the noise still floating from the showroom, "just the whole court laughing."

Isaac was sure that the maiden had misspoken. "Laughter? In the castle?" he wondered incredulously.

Ariana studied the boy she was talking to. He had freckles and a cowlick, bare feet, a simple brown shirt and pants. He was nowhere near as handsome as the dukes and princes who were in the showroom, thinking they were making the princess laugh; he was clearly a commoner. But he had a kind, friendly face and a mouth that seemed to curve upward in a perpetual smile. "Yes, indeed. Laughter in the castle," she answered.

Isaac was truly perplexed. "All the courtiers, the king and queen, the princess—are they all that simple?" The maiden didn't seem simple. She had intelligent eyes, not boastful intelligence, like Tom, Dick, and Harry had, but practical intelligence. She wasn't a fanciful baby like all the girls in Isaac's village, certainly.

Ariana shrugged. "Some of them can be, I suppose. Why?"

"You don't think laughter a sign of a simple mind?"

She just stared at him for a minute, disbelieving. Then Princess Ariana did something she had only done once in her life, back when she was seven months old. Ariana laughed. "What?" she demanded between her giggles.

At first, Isaac was shocked. He had never in his entire life heard anyone else laugh. But the pretty maiden was laughing, and she had a beautiful laugh, clear and warm, bubbly and contagious, the way water would sound if water could laugh. Isaac's heart swelled—from delight and love—and he joined her, laughing freely without worrying about the sinister glare of his father or brothers. Finally, when he and Ariana had quieted, he held out his right hand to shake. "I'm Isaac, youngest son of Tom the swordsmith," he introduced himself.

Ariana stared at his hand, her face still lit up from her laughter. "What am I to do with that?" she demanded lightly.

"You shake it, and tell me who you are as you do so." Isaac considered the girl. She was dressed formally. Perhaps she had never come into contact with the commoner's greeting. Embarrassed, he dropped his hand and sketched a quick bow. "Sorry," he apologized quickly. "Is this more to your liking?"

"Ah, sir, I have nothing against a handshake. I have just never been instructed on how to use one." Ariana curtsied deeply, straightened, and offered Isaac _her_ right hand. "How do you do, Isaac, the swordsmith's youngest son?"

Isaac took her hand and shook it. "I'm doing fine. I'm sorry, though, I didn't catch your name."

Ariana hesitated, concerned that Isaac might turn stiff and on-edge if he knew who she was. But she didn't want to lie to this kind young man, so she replied, slowly, "I'm Ariana."

Isaac pulled away from her in surprise. "_Princess_ Ariana?"

"Don't let that make you think of me any differently, please, just because I'm a princess—"

"Not just _a_ princess. _The_ princess!" And the knowledge suddenly made the laughter in the castle made sense. There was that contest, after all, the contest that all the villagers shook their heads at, claiming that it was proof that their country was moving toward disaster.

Ariana hung her head in despair. She'd done it. She'd lost him.

Isaac noticed, and he wanted her to laugh again. "You're the princess who is supposed to be the sulky and dull."

"What?" Ariana snapped, looking back up and mildly insulted.

Isaac smiled at her. "That's why the laughter in the showroom, right? There are princes and dukes in there trying to do what I've already done."

He had such a kind, wonderful smile that Ariana couldn't feel sulky and disappointed when she saw it. For a few moments, she allowed herself just to bask in that smile before she fully understood what exactly he had said. He had made her laugh! None of the princes or dukes had done what Isaac, the youngest son of Tom the swordsmith, had done! "The contest!" Ariana cried, giggling for sheer delight. "You've won the contest!"

Isaac knew what the reward for winning the contest was: the princess's hand in marriage. And there was the princess, beaming at him, and he knew he loved her…

"_Isaac__!__"_ Tom had had quite enough of his stupid son, and he regretted having brought him to the castle. _"You'd better come, or I'll leave without you__!__"_ Tom rounded the corner to the hallway and gasped in horror at the sight that met his eyes—Isaac, his simple, stupid youngest son, and the princess Ariana. What was Isaac doing? _Smiling_? Oh, good fortune, he hadn't been _laughing_, had he? Tom grabbed his son and bowed low to the princess. "I most humbly beg your pardon for my son, Princess Ariana," he groveled. "He is very simple, and if he has bothered you in any way, I beg of you to grant him your leave."

Ariana's laughter had died at Tom's appearance, and her smile followed soon after. "He has not been bothering me, sir. We were getting along very nicely."

Tom bowed low again. "You are too magnanimous, Your Princesship." He straightened and pushed Isaac toward the doorway in front of him.

"What did you think you were doing?" Tom hissed as he and Isaac left the castle.

"In the castle, Father, laughter is not a sign of a simple mind," Isaac hissed back.

"What do castle folk know? They spend all their time right there, not out in the world like normal people. That is the last time you ever go to the castle. I have received a grant from the king to make new swords for all the Aridonian knights; I will bring Dick or Harry with me for the next times."

No amount of pleading or begging on Isaac's part could change Tom's mind.


	2. Chapter 2

For days, Ariana watched Tom come to the castle to make new swords for the knights, but he brought only his two elder sons with him. The princess had been sure that, one day, Tom would have to bring Isaac with him, but that day never came. After a few weeks, Ariana began to wonder if Isaac had forgotten about her.

Isaac tried every day to convince Tom to bring him to the castle, but it was all for naught. "These are pressing matters," Tom said. "I cannot have you, you simple-minded _laugher_, accompany me to the palace. I need my sane, smart sons to help me with the smithing."

With the princess in the castle, Isaac and his laughter were not the signs of a simple mind, but, in the village, even just his name convinced people that he was stupid.

In all the years of ridicule and pity, Isaac had never felt so lonely.

--

Swordsmithing needed a large, hot fire, and, to obtain a fire of that size and heat, the smither required a lot of wood. Tom soon realized that he would have to provide his own wood for the fire to smith the new swords, so, one morning before he left for the castle, he sent Dick out to chop some wood. "Come back when you have enough for the day," he ordered. "Harry will fetch tomorrow's wood."

Dick nodded, packed a good breakfast, shouldered his axe, and went out to fetch some wood for the day's swords.

--

The little man was hungry. He considered conjuring up some breakfast. But, he thought, conjured food tastes like glue. He would rather have the real thing.

He was delighted to see Dick strolling through the woods with a basket in his hands. The little man caught a whiff of—was it what it smelled like?—honey-cured ham. His mouth watered, and he called out genially to Dick. "Good sir!" he shouted through the trees, hurrying to catch up with the basket and its owner. "Would you mind sharing a bit of your breakfast with me? My stomach is close digesting itself." The little man chuckled at his own joke.

Dick frowned. The little man was a laugher. Simple-minded. He brushed past, not even acknowledging the little man's request.

"Please, sir!" the little man cried again. "I am hungry! Won't you share with me?"

Dick ignored him, ate his breakfast, and swung his axe at the nearest tree.

The little man growled. So, that's the way he wanted it? Fine. Two could play that game. A few muttered words, and the little man left Dick to his fate.

Not ten strokes later, Dick's axe missed the tree and slammed into his left arm. Dick screamed and ran home.

"What?" Tom yelled as he bound up Dick's wounds. "You didn't get one log? I have to leave for the castle in an hour, and I need that wood! Harry! Get some breakfast and go!"

"But Father, I'm working on my Greek—" Harry whined.

"_NOW! GO!_" Tom roared.

Harry, complaining bitterly, packed a basket and left to chop some wood.

--

The little man was still very hungry, but not yet hungry enough to conjure up food. He was planning to, eventually, but not until he was sure that he couldn't procure any real stuff first. His eyes lit up when he saw Harry strolling along with a basket. "Good sir!" he called out. "Would you mind sharing at bit of your breakfast with me? My stomach is close to digesting itself." And, as he did with Dick, the little man chuckled at his own joke.

Harry frowned. The little man was simple-minded. A laugher. With out even acknowledging the little man's request, Harry brushed past.

"Please, sir, won't you share with me?"

Harry ignored him, ate his breakfast, and swung his axe at the nearest tree.

The little man growled again. Fine. Here was another human without a shred of either humor or decency in him.

Not fifteen strokes later, Harry's axe missed the tree and slammed into his right leg. Harry screamed and limped home.

Tom had no choice but to let Isaac go into the woods. But Dick and Harry had taken all the good food and left Isaac with very little. Isaac took it anyway. He wasn't even really paying attention to anything; his mind was focused on the desire to find a way into the castle without Tom's knowing about where he was.

He considered the problem while he walked into the woods. Perhaps…the contest? Could he possibly compete—properly—in the contest to make the princess laugh? It sounded like a good idea. But how could he make Ariana laugh again? He didn't know how he did it the first time. If he were to compete—and win, which he was already convinced he had—then Tom would have to agree, by royal order. Isaac grinned. That's how he'd do it. He'd compete in the contest.

The little man saw Isaac's grin and basket, and hope made his stomach growl. "Oh, good sir!" the man called. "Would you mind sharing you food with me? I am so hungry, my stomach is nearly digesting itself." The man chuckled and held his breath. If Isaac said no, he would have to conjure up some food, and he really did not want to do that.

Isaac was surprised by the chuckle. He looked at his meager meal and back to the little man. "I don't have much…" he started.

The little man nodded encouragingly. "Whatever you have will be enough, truly."

"I'm in a hurry…"

"I'll make it worth your while."

Isaac shrugged. "You don't have to do that. I would let you have _some_, at least, anyway."

The man nodded. "I can see that. Please. Spread it out so we may eat."

Isaac did as he was bid, and he and the little man shared the meal. While eating, the little man asked him what he was doing, and Isaac told him about wanting to compete in the castle contest. "I have already won, I suppose, but I don't think it counts. We were really just talking in the hallway."

"I hear the princess never laughs, which is such a shame, because I imagine a girl as pretty as she would have a nice laugh."

Isaac shook his head. "'Nice' doesn't come near describing it." He smiled vaguely, lost in his memory. "You've never heard beauty until you've heard Princess Ariana's laugh."

"Well," the little man said briskly, getting to his feet, "I wish you the best of luck. Now, don't you have some trees to cut down?"

Isaac snapped back to attention. "Yes, I do." He also stood up. He went to the nearest tree and started chopping.

There's a human that needs a reward, the little man thought. He stared penetratingly at the tree.

The tree wobbled a moment, held up by a thin strip of trunk, before toppling over.

_Quack!_ At the base of the tree sat a goose, quacking in annoyance and grooming her silky golden feathers.

"What's this?" Isaac asked.

"A way for you to win your princess," the little man replied. "Go. Pick up the goose and take it to the castle."

Isaac picked up the goose, but he couldn't see what good she would do him. "How…?"

The little man smiled reassuringly. "You'll see," he promised as he disappeared among the trees.

Isaac turned and walked straight toward the castle, forgetting all about the wood he was suppose to have. He didn't understand how the goose was going to help him compete for the princess's hand; however, something in him trusted the little man's promise.

Halfway between the woods and the castle, there was an inn. The three innkeeper's daughters were outdoors, tidying up the yard. One caught sight of Isaac and the goose. "What beautiful feathers!" she said to her sisters. "Perhaps we could get a few." The innkeeper's daughters ran after Isaac. The eldest, who got within reach of the goose first, grabbed the goose's tail.

The goose, honking indignantly, turned and bit the innkeeper's eldest daughter on the arm.

The girl screeched in pain and tried to let go of the goose, but she couldn't.

Isaac looked at her. What was this? The goose was…sticky! He smiled.

The other two innkeeper's daughters also reached for the feathers they wanted, never minding the boy who carried the goose. Wasn't he Isaac, Tom the swordsmith's youngest son, anyway? What did he care about whether or not his goose was missing a few feathers? Simple-minded folk never burdened themselves with possessions. The middle sister took hold of the goose's wing.

The goose ruffled her feathers, angry as a goose could be, and hissed at the new hand clutching her. The middle girl, like her sister, was stuck fast.

"Don't touch the goose!" both girls shouted to their youngest sister as she approached. The youngest girl, smarter and more serious than her elder siblings, scolded her sisters for being so silly and grabbed hold of her oldest sister.

The goose honked her displeasure.

Isaac glanced back at his train and couldn't stop the chuckle he felt in his throat. He broke into a run. All three girls followed, yelling. He staggered, zigzagging erratically through the street. The girls, screaming, followed, even the youngest, who had not even touched the goose.

The trail of girls attracted the attention of the local priest. "For shame!" he scolded loudly, hurrying over to Isaac and the innkeeper's daughters. "Young ladies do not traipse after young men in such a fashion." He reached out and grabbed the youngest daughter's shoulder to pull her away. He became stuck as well.

The goose was growing very annoyed. Dragging four loud-mouthed, heavy people through the streets of the village was not on her list of things to do that day.

The party came across a young couple with a baby. "Wait, I say, priest!" the man shouted. "You have to christen our little daughter today!" He snagged the priest's baggy robe, his wife on his arm and his baby daughter in her basket. The baby wailed. The wife cried. The priest prayed. The innkeeper's daughters screamed. Isaac laughed.

The baby's basket, swinging as it was in the mother's hand, tapped against the leg of an unsuspecting gawker, who soon found himself off his feet and being half-dragged over the cobblestone streets. Isaac paused to allow this man to stand back up, and he slowed down a bit to let the man stay on his feet. But the man was still obliged to hop, one leg stuck to the baby's basket as it was.

In this manner, Isaac, the goose, and the parade of people following them reached the castle. The hopping man, unsteady on one foot as he was, reached out to the nearest drawbridge guard and brushed the guard's pike with his fingertips. The guard and his pike also found themselves following Isaac and the goose into the castle.

--

In the showroom, Princess Ariana sat in her throne, bored out of her skull. She wondered where Tom the swordsmith's youngest son was—Isaac, she reminded herself. His name is Isaac. She wondered if some other girl had snatched him up and if he would ever come to the castle again.

Noises—honks, shouts, screams, wails—erupted from the hallway. Ariana looked up. Into the arena marched a person with a goose under his arm and nine people following him. They appeared attached somehow to one another, and they were shouting, screaming, crying, and praying, one on top of the other. And the young man at the head of the line was…!

Ariana beamed, and her smile turned quickly to a laugh, one of joy, and then of amusement. The young man was Isaac!

King, queen, and courtiers were astonished as they watched the princess, who had been recorded laughing but once in her life, tip her head back and laugh freely.

"Your Highnesses," Isaac called to the king and queen, bowing low, "I have come to seek you daughter's hand in marriage."

Ariana, still smiling, raced down to the arena. "How is this accomplished?" she wondered, studying the manner in which the one man's leg was stuck against the baby basket.

Isaac wasn't sure how to make the people become unstuck. "I don't know," he admitted. "The goose is sticky somehow, and now I don't know how to make her unsticky."

"You mean to say that we're stuck like this forever?" the woman wailed.

"Our Father who art in Heaven, send forth Thy grace and transform Thy wild goose yonder to one of a less adhesive variety…" the priest prayed.

Isaac resorted to the only option he felt like he had. "Okay, goose," he said, feeling silly for talking to a bird, "it's time that these nice people were allowed to get on with their lives."

"…And, if it be in Thy will that we should be permanently affixed to this young lad and his fair fowl…"

"Oh, how dreadful! My daughter would grow up attached to her basket!"

"…Let us learn patience and mercy…"

Ariana giggled a little at the ruckus in front of her.

The goose, honking in an annoyed manner, ruffled her feathers and struggled from Isaac's arms, releasing the train of people from her sticky spell.

"…We thank Thee for the wisdom Thou hast shown, and the grace and mercy that Thou hast bestowed upon us for liberating us from Thy golden goose…"

"Crazy simpleton," the youngest innkeeper's daughter whispered as she led the procession from the arena.

Ariana bent down and stroked the goose's soft golden feathers. "She is an amazing creature," she muttered. "Where did you get her?"

Before Isaac had a chance to answer, the little man who had shared his breakfast strode into the arena. "Goldy is mine," he replied, bowing low to the royals on their thrones.

The king and queen paled at the sight of the little man, then the king leapt to his feet and bounded down to the arena much like his daughter had just the minute before. "Sirus!" he exclaimed, clapping the man on the shoulder. "You've returned!"

"Didn't I tell you I would?" the little man said. "And with me, I've brought a young man who is as generous and pleasant as any young man to be found today. He has won the contest for your daughter's hand, Sebastian. I suggest you honor your word."

The king turned to Isaac, noticed he was a commoner, and dismissed the realization in the same thought. If this young man had the old wizard's approval, then he was certainly good enough for the princess. "Congratulations, son," King Sebastian said, "and welcome to court."

Isaac felt his jaw hanging open with the king's greeting—son!—and he forced it closed before it could condemn him as the simpleton that the people in his village thought he was. "Thank you, sire," he replied. "I'm Isaac, youngest son of Tom the swordsmith." He stuck out his right hand to shake.

Everyone—the king, the queen, Ariana, all the courtiers watching—laughed. King Sebastian took his hand and shook it.

And that is how Isaac, the youngest son of the local swordsmith, laugher and supposed-simpleton, became a prince.

--

**Happy Holidays!**


End file.
